though the world explode

This is the poem I have been holding in reserve for a day when I have lots of feelings that do not easily align themselves with poetry. Although actually this poem is totally relevant today, because I have wonderful friends who take really good care of me when I am totally insane and on the wrong drugs. In truth this is a great poem, and I really appreciate a fandom that is as long-lasting and literary as this one.

Here dwell together still two men of note
Who never lived and so can never die:
How very near they seem, yet how remote
That age before the world went all awry.
But still the game’s afoot for those with ears
Attuned to catch the distant view-halloo:
England is England yet, for all our fears—
Only those things the heart believes are true.

A yellow fog swirls past the window-pane
As night descends upon this fabled street:
A lonely hansom splashes through the rain,
The ghostly gas lamps fail at twenty feet.
Here, though the world explode, these two survive,
And it is always eighteen ninety-five.

—Vincent Starrett (1886–1974), "221B," 1942.

So actually I have two other things to say about this poem: first, it is a sonnet, and I really love sonnets. Second, I didn't know the date of this poem until I looked it up to make this post, and I just -- it's a war poem. It's a war poem about Sherlock Holmes fandom, and nostalgia, and how stories survive, and about protecting ourselves from the terrors of the world with stories, and yes, there are some potentially problematic things about all of that (also Starrett was an American, which seems kind of strange to me in the context of this poem, despite being an American myself), but nevertheless: Holmes and Watson, always, against all odds.